And to Margaret's secret satisfaction, Giles had the new vicar cried in Rotterdam and the neighbouring towns. He easily persuaded Margaret that in a day or two Gerard would be sure to hear, and come to his benefice. She went to look at his manse, and thought how comfortable it might be made for him, and how dearly she should love to do it.
But the days rolled on, and Gerard came neither to Rotterdam nor Gouda. Giles was mortified, Margaret indignant, and very wretched. She said to herself, “Thinking me dead, he comes home, and now, because I am alive, he goes back to Italy, for that is where he has gone.”
Joan advised her to consult the hermit of Gouda.
“Why, sure he is dead by this time.”
“Yon one, belike. But the cave is never long void; Gouda ne'er wants a hermit.”
But Margaret declined to go again to Gouda on such an errand, “What can he know, shut up in a cave? less than I, belike. Gerard hath gone back t' Italy. He hates me for not being dead.”
Presently a Tergovian came in with a word from Catherine that Ghysbrecht Van Swieten had seen Gerard later than any one else. On this Margaret determined to go and see the house and goods that had been left her, and take Reicht Heynes home to Rotterdam. And as may be supposed, her steps took her first to Ghysbrecht's house. She found him in his garden, seated in a chair with wheels. He greeted her with a feeble voice, but cordially; and when she asked him whether it was true he had seen Gerard since the fifth of August, he replied, “Gerard no more, but Friar Clement. Ay, I saw him; and blessed be the day he entered my house.”
He then related in his own words his interview with Clement.
He told her, moreover, that the friar had afterwards acknowledged he came to Tergou with the missing deed in his bosom on purpose to make him disgorge her land; but that finding him disposed towards penitence, he had gone to work the other way.
“Was not this a saint; who came to right thee, but must needs save his enemy's soul in the doing it?”